Youth Voices

Is Love a Reason to Justify Acid Attacks?

Thousands of women across the nation have become innocent victims of acid attacks. PHOTO: EXPRESS TRIBUNE

Acid throwing has become one of the evils that a number of Pakistani women have been suffering from in the recent times. Although the survival rate is high among acid victims, it is nevertheless true that even in spite of surviving, the kind of life they live is certainly something they had not asked for.

While talking about the evil of acid throwing, one question that arises is why would anyone commit a crime like that? Why would anyone in their right minds would want to throw acid on someone else’s face or body and completely distort the way they looked. I too had wondered about the same question, until one day while having a casual conversation with my house maid, she told me a similar story. A beautiful girl in her neighbourhood had been brutally attacked and thrown acid at by an unidentified individual.

Shocked to hear the story, I asked her for more details, and made a point to follow up on what happened next with the girl. During all this time, I kept wondering about the poor girl and a hundreds of others who have become an innocent victim of this evil. We all wonder what good it would do to those who would throw acid on others, how such an act would make their lives better, or even give them a sense of accomplishment. However, all these questions remain unanswered.

Finally, one day, I sought the courage to ask my maid of the following episode, and know how the girl was now coping with her life. The follow up of the story, was something that I was certainly not expecting!

The acid thrower was an admirer of the victim’s beauty, and had always dreamt of marrying her. However, all these dreams and fantasies of living a happy life with the victim came crashing down when the girl was engaged to a relative. With this knowledge, the culprit was engulfed with emotions of revenge, envy, and jealousy and one day, he finally decided what should be done to make his lover his forever!

He went to his lover’s door, knocked until the girl came out to see who it was, and immediately threw acid on her beautiful face and rushed away! He left her behind, panting and crying, as her face melted down and her facial features became completely unrecognizable.

Nevertheless, the only happy ending that I could conclude from this dreadful story was that the victim’s fiancé, still wished to marry her, and made sure that he stayed around during the difficult times of his fiancée.

This fact, although spread a smile across my face, and my house maid was happy to tell this part of the story too, but the fact remains that an innocent girl had to suffer just because she was likable and was admired by other men.

The question remains the same, does love or admiration make a justifiable answer to the increasing number of acid attacks over women in our county? Of course not! Love is a beautiful feeling that gives one strength and content to see the other happy and living a beautiful life. Obviously, being in love would never take one to take such extreme decisions, and harm others.

According to me, a man who commits a horrendous crime like this should never in a million years even be referred to as a lover. Instead they should be punished behind the bars, until they realize their mistakes and stop covering their actions by wrapping them in silver foiling of love and admiration.